contented in my poverty; this I do not like; I dread carnal eafe, which I often find is ready to creep in. Since I saw you last I have at times been more comfortable in my foul than ever I have been in my life. The scriptures feem to open to me with more ease than ufual, not only those you hinted at, but others befides; and my spirit is more sweet, lefs wrath and bitterness in delivering my discourses; I cannot fetch that on my foul again if I try at it, nor can I bring it into my difcourfes if I was to attempt it. But this is only growing in knowledge; I am afraid of it at times, it does not please nor fatisfy me; I contend with the Lord about the way, and am ftill for having my own, and fometimes choose ftrangling rather than life, because I cannot get it. This is the way I go on. If there is a little enlargement, and an appearance of coming out, then I fear I have not been long enough nor deep enough in; and when the dark day comes again, then I conclude that I have now been fo long in,- that I never fhall come out to fee light. What would I give if I could continue in the fame frame as I delivered a few dif courfes in foon after I faw you laft; the favour of them feems to abide ftill, but have not been able fince to enter fo largely into the field. No, no, my barrenness has again returned, and I cannot fee that I am yet fuccefsful; the inhabitants of the world have not yet fallen, nor have I wrought any deliverance on the earth. I do not know that I am good for any thing, except it is to murder, and that I do not like at all; I wish to communicate life to dead finners, this I would like. person at T - There is now a on the borders of Kent, who, I am told, used to rave moft defperately against God's fovereignty, and having heard much about me, came to hear me, whom God ftruck with an arrow. He went home and got to bed, but has never been out of it to this day; he is in black defpair, and his flesh wafted from his bones; he cannot endure to be alone one moment, and talks of nothing but the fermon he heard, and of strange things going on at Lewes. There is a talk of more forces being raised to root out all the errors from this place; but I know what the fword of all those can do. What I want is to fee the dead raised, and made to ftand on their feet. God Almighty bless you. J. J. LETTER I AM now in my old hut, but not in a peaceable dwelling, nor in a quiet refting-place; for it begins to hail, coming down on the foreft, and the city (at prefent) is low, in a low place; and bleffed are they that fow befide all waters, that fend forth thither the feet of the ox and the afs. A kind and preffing invitation hath caused me to ftray from my Father's houfe, in order to scatter a little of the good feed of the kingdom in a foil where I had not been before; and in my abfence the enemy hath fowed tares among the wheat, and is gone his way. I liftened to the good report and popular applause that was given to me, by my kind folicitors, of a preacher whom I had never known; and being much put to it for a supply in my absence, I readily exchanged with an incarnate devil, in the counterfeited rays of an angel of light, and fo left my charge with one of the lewd hirelings, whofe fathers I would bave difdained to have fet with the dogs of my flock. He is one of the children of base men, he is viler than than the earth; I have brayed after him as after a thief, for he hath attempted to exclude them all from Christ, that they might affect him. To fome he hath been a very lovely fong, to others a builder up without a foundation, and the itching ears of others have been scratched; another, who, like Doeg, hath been long detained as a prifoner before the Lord; or, like Peter, his foul has been in chains between two foldiers, I mean the flesh and the devil, was set at liberty by a wonderful definition of the two stone figures at the front of Bethlehem Hospital; which definition was applied to Jonah and Hezekiah-the former, the preacher faid was raving mad; and the latter, melancholy mad. But this is no wonder, the scribes called the Master of the house Beelzebub, and this gentleman fays the fame of his household; but the preacher must go this ftrange way through Jericho, in order to bring the aforefaid gentleman into what he calls liberty, though to this day he is bound, and among the tombs, and seeking the living among the dead. Thofe that have longed for prophecies upon smooth things and upon deceits, have been greatly bleffed; the painted fepulchres have all been touched over twice; the whited walls have had the brush upon them, and the tower of Babel hath been raised two ftories; the chambers of imagery have been cleaned and fresh painted, but none of the high places have been taken away, the people ftill facrifice upon them. Some who were never fo low as the pots, have been like the wings of a dove covered with filver, and their feathers with yellow gold. Others are in the highest seats, who, so far from being delivered, like the Hebrew women, that they were never fo much as upon the ftools. However, I am determined to make no leagues with thefe Gibeonites; nor will I treat with fuch ambassadors; their clouted fhoes, mouldy bread, and old leather bottles, are none of the things which bring glory to God in the higheft, nor peace upon earth, much lefs good will toward men. Such wretches pretend to come to us because of the name of the Lord our God, but they bring none of those things with them that accompany falvation. I have fhewed my determination to make no leagues with thefe hewers of wood and drawers of water; and in this matter I am brought into the fad predicament of Nehemiah. Some praise the good deeds of this Sanballat, and repeat them to me, who are in alliance with him; but I am for no confederacy, nor do I dare to walk in the way of them that are confederate. This I have refolved in my mind, and I have no doubt but the God of Ifrael will be with me in this determination; for I know that by this man the devil is come down among us, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time; and I know that Satan hates me with perfect hatred, for my dear Master's fake. The old ferpent seems to be very fiery, and some of his crooked generation begin to hifs not a little; but I have not broke through the hedge, therefore I do not think that he or they can bité me. The fun at noon day doth |